IT'S like we're living in one of Alfred Hitchcock's terrifying thought bubbles.

Bats are falling to the ground and dying all around us. The trees are littered with the creatures, some of whom are still clinging to branches long after they stopped clinging to life.

It's gruesome, scary and more than a little bewildering. But there's a perfectly legitimate scientific reason for this horror.

These poor bats were photographed at Pan Pacific Gardens in Redbank.Source:News Limited

Conservation workers and vets, who have spent much of the past two days removing bodies, humanely euthanising survivors and finding homes for babies, reckon tens of thousands of bats have died because of the heatwave in Queensland.